Who moved my cheese?
TV lied. (It won’t be raising MY children!).
It told us, in 2008, Bega was famous for Bega. A half truth it seems, since, as Richard Farmer from Crikey tells us, only the Vintage Cheddars are made there. The rest of the Bega range is making another town famous.
Bega isn’t alone.
National Foods recently consolidated its consolidations, (turfing out 103 cheese makers in the process) and now all their cheese brands, except King Island Dairy, are made in the one mega factory in Tasmania.
Yep, that means the only cheese in their range that’s made where you think it’s made, is King Island. Mersey Valley, South Cape, Heidi Farm et al are all just pretty words that used to be literal.
Does this matter?
Am I just getting sentimental about a postcode?
Do you have to be from Bega to be Began? From South Cape to be South Cape-an? Setra, setra…
I mean, as long as age-old recipes are respected, logos aren’t fiddled with and a product feels like it’s from where you think it’s from, does it really matter where head office is?
Obviously National Foods doesn’t think so.
But I do. I felt a little cheated when I found out.
As I did with Bega. Especially since they so blatantly romanticised provenance in their advertising – they obviously realised its value and milked it (teehee) for all they could. That feels dishonest. Makes me wonder what else they don’t really care about. What else can be sacrificed for higher margins?
And it’s not only our cheeses that are disappointing.
Take that quintessential, you-beaut ozzie icon, the flying Kangaroo…
You think issues of provenance would be pretty front and centre for them. That keeping everything ozzie-ish in their marketing a high priority. Yet there’s John Travolta, encouraging us to pay attention in their new safety video!
No Qantas, an ‘honorary’ Australian is not an Australian. JT is just a cashed-up US mega-star, who can afford to fly planes for no other reason than it looks like good fun and who happens to like us and you. Nice enough dude, but do you really think he should be spruiking our national airline??? Put it this way, would Americans be happy if Russell Crowe were telling them where the safety exits are on United’s planes?!
Am I just a small-minded patriot, because that doesn’t seem right to me? (It’s not that hard really – the Kiwis seemed to have got it right with hilarious safety videos on Air New Zealand, featuring their national team, the All Blacks or cameos by kiwi celebrities!
Maybe in such a globalised world, it doesn’t matter if a brand disrespects its origins – do you agree?
